While we’re on the subject, here’s some reader mail about the TCCI:
– “The Searchers or Rio Bravo? Neither. Trite male weepies the both of them.”
– “Yeats and Vermeer are at least close. Trollope should get your critic’s license yanked. What’s interesting is that you prefer Dostoyevsky to Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky and Dickens are quite different–Dickens has no religion, Dostoyevsky has no affection–but they both offer heightened, slightly hallucinogenic versions of reality. Trollope may not be fit to do more than shine Tolstoy’s shoes, but they both claim to offer The Thing Itself, in large swatches. This is what makes lists fun.”
– “Bach on piano vs. harpsichord–maybe I told you this story–if so, stop me here–but as a child doing the local music competition circuit, I came across that issue in what became my first example of biased judging. Picture the 10 year old me playing some 3 part invention as influenced by a
Russian piano teacher. Then picture the same me with a stricken look when told by the judge that I had violated one of his tenets in not playing the piece